jwilzewske

Monday, May 21, 2007

27 April 07

Update on Joe Arpaio's Cockroaches

One of my neighbours, Hound, recently stayed at the Maricopa County jail.
“How bad was it?” I asked.
“Towers has that same funk smell they can’t get rid of.” Hound said. “It permeates the walls. It’s like Arpaio had 'em take some of the rotten meat they serve us, and use it as wallpaper.”
“Are they still serving red death?”
“Yes.”
“How did you deal with it?”
“I didn’t deal well. I was on the toilet a lot of the time I was there.”
“What was the cockroach factor?”
“Out of control. I spent one day at Madison St jail. I can’t even explain or tell you how many cockroaches there were. It’s like it’s their turf. You get a sense of intruding on their environment. We walked in, and they’re sitting on old rotten apples just looking at us with what-do-you-think-you’re-doing? kinda expressions. Everyone starting asking for TP. I’m thinking, Did the shitter peanut butter go through them that quick? Then I see them making little balls out of the paper. I’m wondering what they’re doing. I notice them sticking the paper in their ears and noses, and then vying for positions to lie down on the floor. The TP was to protect themselves from the cockroaches.”
“The cockroaches I lived with loved earwax.”
“They bunged their ears up. Then, when they would lie on a spot on the floor the cockroaches would literally move out in, like waves to give room to the inmate. But the cockroaches got pissed off that an inmate had taken their spot. So the war was on. It started with the cockroaches that had moved out with the wave. They grouped up in regiments to figure out how they were gonna handle the invasion. Some crawled up the walls. Now, I’m sitting on a picnic bench, sick of listening to people go on about how they were wrongly accused and how they were gonna beat their cases; so, I turn to the cockroaches for entertainment. I figured they’re crawling up the walls just to find a crack to return to their houses, but that wasn’t the case. I saw a huge one, maybe an inch long, crawling up the wall looking behind him, trying to set himself up for the right angle of descent.”
“He was a jumper?”
“Yes. You knew it from the way he kept looking behind himself. The guy lying on the floor below the cockroach was a snorer with his mouth wide open. I knew what was coming. At the perfect moment the cockroach lined himself up. I swear I heard it scream banzai! as it released itself from the wall and did an Olympic diver back flip. It missed his mouth by inches, and landed on his cheek. With the big roach on his face, and the ground troops crawling up the inside of his pants legs, I knew it was time to wake the guy up and let him know he was being infested. Then there was the mouse.”
“A mouse?”
“Yes. At Towers, despite the lack of food – the rotten meat and two slices of bread to last us all day – a mouse came in every night as soon as the lights went off like she had a reservation at a restaurant. She would stare at me in the dark looking for scraps I may have left. As starving as I was I figured I’d rather feed her, and have her leave than to have her company all night long.”
“That was good lookin’ out.”
“Absolutely.”

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Friday, May 18, 2007

24 April 07

Note From Frankie

I got a message from Frankie:

Hey now!
What’s up, Englandman? And how’s the wet spot? I hope nice and wet 'cause that would tell me that your booty is puckering for me.
Bad news my friend. It was New Year’s and me and the crew were having a little fun bringing in the year 2007 but the guards got crazy and started rushing my house and only took me out of ten of us. I will tell you a lot more once this heat cools off.
Don’t forget you promised to fly me to England so we can get together. Remember to have my plane ticket ready to leave when I get out on 5-19-2008. That’s not long after you get out. You’d better be thinking about me 'cause I don’t want to send my dogs over there to rough you up. Don’t be shy my lover, be ready for me.

Much love and respect, =Frankie=
p.s. Forget me not!

Two Tonys reveals what happened to Charlie "the Batts" Battaglia

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Managing Stage Fright & Performance Anxiety in Classical Musicians

Before beta blockers, I saw a lot of musicians using alcohol or benzodiazepines. I believe beta blockers are far more beneficial than deleterious, and I have no qualms about prescribing them.”

— Mitchell Kahn MD, Director, Miller Healthcare Institute for Performing Artists

Edgar Ende, El Espejo en El Espejo: Un Laberinto, 1947

DSM: A friend of mine, an experienced pianist accustomed to performing frequently in public, recently confided to me how much she’s still affected by “jitters” before a concert, despite the years that she has been playing and building her career. In fact, as her career has progressed and the concert dates have become more frequent, she notes that the pre-concert anxieties have been getting worse, not better. Her heart thumps loudly; she feels distracted, so much so that she worries about forgetting passages that she never in fact forgets; and her head feels as if it were burning up. Her hands shake, and the tension in her arms and wrists keeps her from performing with her normal sensitivity and nuance.

CMT: This is your friend who has a couple of recent CDs?

DSM: Yes. With the positive reviews that those have received has come more frequent coverage by critics in the press. And, at least in her mind, she imagines more people in her audiences arrive at the concerts expecting a particular kind of experience or level of performance or interpretation that her recordings or the reviews have conditioned them to expect. She feels she’s no longer the obscure academician playing her heart out. Admittedly, performances were never carefree. But now she feels the stakes are magnified each time she strides onto the stage. That’s what makes her “jitters” worse. Breathing exercises and yoga and other things she’s tried seem not to have been effective . . .

CMT: What do you think? Should she see a clinical psychologist or therapist about it? What about medications that are at all effective for stage fright or “performance jitters”—ones that would not majorly blunt her acuity or sedate or otherwise interfere with her performance practice? I know that beta blocker antihypertensive drugs are used by quite a few people. And half-dose escitalopram or half-dose diazepam are used by some.

DSM: Well, frankly, there are some psychologists who work with performing artists and claim to have approaches that are reasonably effective.

CMT: What about the meds, though? What’re the current statuses of those?

DSM: To me, that’d be somewhat a last recourse, something to try if other things fail. But, yes, there are several alternatives that enjoy a degree of effectiveness. All of them would be prescribed off-label, of course. None of them is specifically designed or approved for use in performance anxiety as such.

CMT: Yes, well, the transformation of “enhancements” into “treatments” is now a familiar part of medicine, of course, and it’s been accelerated by medicine’s move into the consumer marketplace. Carl Elliott’s essay in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine (17-MAY; 356: 2024-5) notes that physicians today prescribe drugs to lengthen attention spans, strengthen erections, and smooth out wrinkled brows, even when they are not entirely convinced that what they are treating is a medical need rather than merely a consumer desire. Many others write prescriptions for conditions that blur the boundary between pathology and ordinary human variability: synthetic growth hormone for short stature, SSRI and NERI antidepressants for social anxiety disorder, and hormone-replacement therapy for the effects of menopause (although the risks that militate against that one are now recently pretty clear-cut). The line between what consumers want and what patients need has become blurred beyond recognition. So why should chamber music be any different?

DSM: Many people feel uneasy about this, including me, without being able to say exacly why we feel uneasy. Michael Sandel’s fine new book, ‘The Case against Perfection’, aims to characterize that unease. Sandel is not so much bothered by the specific enhancements and abilities that consumers might choose (my own accomodating or preferring deafness and stapedial spasms rather than super-hearing, for example) or even the possibility that these procedures will be bought and sold in the marketplace. It’s the commodification of human experience itself. Sandel worries that more genetic choice will undermine our appreciation of the gifted character of human life—our sense that the way we are is not solely the product of our own doing. For Sandel, the effort to bring our physiologic or psychologic or genetic constitution under our voluntary control represents a kind of hubris. Standing face to face with a marvel of biology, one produced by eons of natural selection, we decide we can do better.

CMT: Many Americans see choice as a categorical good: the more we have, the better. I think other people in other countries have maybe a more balanced view. But as Sandel points out, choice is everywhere a mixed blessing. The more control we exercise over our identities, our capabilities, our deficiencies, our limitations—the greater our responsibility for the results. Weaknesses and minor afflictions that we could once blame on Nature or Fate, we’re now able to blame only on ourselves. The illusion that you can ‘master’ or ‘control’ things is an illusion—an illusion that can leap up and bite you. Look at all the failed plastic surgery walking around! So what about medications in pre-performance “jitters”?

DSM: Beta blockers, taken in small dosages, can quell anxiety without apparent side effects. The article in the New York Times by Blair Tindall several years ago was the first piece in the lay press I’d seen about that, despite the fact that it’s really common practice.

Lopressor® (metoprolol), 50 mg
Tenormin® (atenolol), 25 mg
Visken® (pindolol), 5 mg
Corgard® (nadolol), 40 mg
Blocadren® (timolol), 20 mg
Trandate® (labetalol), 100 mg
Inderal® (propranolol), 40 mg

One of these can be taken an hour or two before a concert. You don’t have to take them every day. In fact, you probably would prefer not to take them on a routine, daily basis. That way, the drug’s effectiveness for mitigating the pre-concert anxiety is preserved. Your body isn’t accustomed to having the drug on board all the time. And these doses are small enough that the usual beta-blocker side-effects (drowsiness or fatigue; cold hands and feet; weakness or dizziness; dry mouth, eyes, and skin; trouble breathing, or shortness of breath; libido changes) would almost certainly not occur, especially in these reduced single-dose pre-concert-only amounts.

A beta-1-selective adrenergic receptor blocking agent like metoprolol or atenolol is probably best. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that it has a preferential effect on beta-1 adrenoreceptors, chiefly located in cardiac muscle. This preferential effect is not absolute, however, and at higher doses such as are used in treating severe high blood pressure, the beta-1-selected drugs can also block beta-2 adrenoreceptors, chiefly the beta-2 receptors on the cells located in the bronchial and vascular musculature. Clinical pharmacology studies have confirmed the beta-blocking activity of metoprolol and other beta-1-selective adrenergic blockers, as shown by (1) reduction in heart rate and cardiac output at rest and under stress, (2) reduction of systolic blood pressure upon exercise, (3) inhibition of stress-induced or isoproterenol-induced tachycardia, and (4) reduction of reflex orthostatic tachycardia.

Relative beta-1 selectivity has been confirmed by the following: (1) In normal subjects, metoprolol’s unable to reverse the beta-2-mediated vasodilating effects of epinephrine (adrenaline). This contrasts with the effect of nonselective (beta-1 plus beta-2) beta blockers like propranolol, which completely reverse the vasodilating effects of epinephrine. (2) In asthmatic patients, metoprolol and other beta-1-selective blockers don’t reduce pulmonary function like FEV1 and FVC as much as a nonselective beta blocker (such as propranolol or timolol or labetolol or nadolol or pindolol) would do at an equivalent beta-1-receptor-blocking dose. So if you’re a singer or a wind instrument player you want a beta-1-selective for sure, but even if you’re a keyboardist or a string or percussion player you probably want a beta-1 selective drug too.

Musicians quietly began to do beta blockers after their application to stage fright was first published in The Lancet, the British medical journal, in 1977. By 1987, a survey conducted by the International Conference of Symphony Orchestra Musicians, which represents the 51 largest orchestras in the U.S., found that 27 percent of its musicians had used the drugs. Psychiatrists at centers that treat professional musicians now estimate that the number’s much higher today. Robert Barris, bassoonist and a co-Chairman of the Music Performance faculty at Northwestern University, encourages students to address the root cause of their anxiety instead of relying on medications, though. He tends to recommend yoga and exercise. The only issue is that those take a long time to be effective and in some cases they aren’t effective. Many people don’t have the patience for that; they just prefer to go with the sure-fire, pharmaceutical solution, especially since that usually just involves single low-dose use right before the performance.

The information on this page is not intended as medical advice and is not meant to be a substitute for individual medical judgment by a physician or other medical healthcare professional. The aim is to provide information and help in suggesting considerations for preventive care. Beta blockers should be used only after a medical examination and under the supervision of a doctor, of course. This is because people with asthma or heart disease could develop problems like shortness of breath or heart failure or a slowing of the heart rate. Remember, always consult a licensed healthcare provider for individualized advice on your health decisions.

If you have to take a drug to do your job, then go get another job.”

— Sara Sant'Ambrogio, Cellist and founding member, Eroica Trio.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

21 April 07

Recruited By Iron Man and Grit

Shaped like bricks, Iron Man and Grit sit at the same table as me in the chow hall.

“How come you guys are always jacked up?” I asked.
“’Cause,” Grit said, “we just did twelve-hundred pushups, one-and-a-half hours of burpies.”
“What’s a burpie?”
“If you really wanna know,” Iron Man said, “show up at the rec room when our doors open and we’ll give you a crash course.”
Grit chuckled and said, “By the time you walk out of the rec room - ”
“If you can still stand,” Iron Man said.
“ – you won’t have any doubts in your mind what burpies are.”
“I’d like to try what you guys are doing. Do you think you could increase my definition and maybe help me put on five pounds or so of muscle mass?”
“Look, if you’re interested in gettin’ in shape,” Iron Man said, “I know how to do it. If you learn my routines and put one-hundred percent fuckin’ effort into them, I’ll have you in the best fuckin’ shape of your life – guaranteed.”
“I heard you guys have knowledge of martial arts.”
“Yeah,” Iron Man said,” I’ve had some trainin’.”
“Which types?”
“Look,” Iron Man said, “this is the deal: I don’t like talkin’ about this shit 'cause it tips my hand. When people know what skills you have it’s possible for them to come up with a defence against them. But if you’re gonna be workin’ out with us, I’ll tell you what’s up.”
“Yeah. It’ll be great to work out with you guys.”
“OK. All through high school I trained in judo and karate, and then I did years of kung fu after I graduated. My kung fu master was a class-four special forces badass whose job in Nam was to go out in the night before the Marines and kill every sentry within a mile-wide area usin’ only silent killin’ techniques – garrotes and edged weapons. He was a fourth-degree black belt in a style that was a combination of the tiger, horse, and mantis.”
“Can you show me some of that?”
“We’ll see,” Iron Man said.
“And you’ll only be workin’ out with me for a few weeks 'cause I’m gettin’ out at the end of this month,” Grit said.
“That’s alright. When do we start?”
“Tomorrow night,” Iron Man said.

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Monday, May 14, 2007

18 April 07

Xena V Bones (2)

“Is Bones an undercover Cult Of Xena member?” I asked Xena.
“Look,” Bones said, flipping me off. “You’ve got two of these fingers. Why dontcha shove 'em up your ass, and walk on your elbows.”
“The main reason I can’t do that,” I said, “is because I don’t have an ass. I have an arse.”
“When it comes to COX membership, “Xena said, “the closest thing Bones gets to COX recognition is when he rubs Jell-O all over himself and dances naked in front of his mirror, which is too small for him to see his penis in – not that a bigger mirror would help him in that department. Then he gets all sad 'cause he used to boogie on down like that for his squirrel, and his old hairy celly.”
Bones was speechless.
Slope said to Bones, “Red’s consortin’ with the enemy.” Because I was sat with Red at the picnic table by Yard 4.
Red grabbed my Bic rendering me unable to document the dialogue.
“Throw his tea in the river, Red,” Slope said. “Those fuckin’ Limeys have been manipulatin’ our politics for years. The only war they didn’t drag us into was Korea.”
“Xena,” I said. “How does Bones feel about all of this?”
“Bones is sad,” Xena said, “’cause he doesn’t have a squirrel except for the one between his legs.”
“Don’t shoot one across the bows. Shoot him in the bowels,” Slope said to Red, and left with Bones.
“How’s Slingblade?” I asked Xena.
“Slingblade’s latest,” Xena said, “is he walked up to a CO with his chow tray, and his arms started shakin’ as if he were gonna bash the guy’s head in with his tray, and the CO freaked out, and nearly called an IMS 'cause he thought Slingblade was gonna kill him.”
“I heard Frankie got busted with dope and sent to SMU?” (Supermax.)
“Yeah,” Xena said. “He got busted while doin’ a UA with dope in his boxers. At the strip search, he couldn’t remember which one was the sack – the one between his legs or the dope sack – so he pulled 'em both out, and lo and behold he got in trouble for both of 'em.”
“I heard Ogre got moved to maximum for having too many tickets?”
“Yeah. His membership in COX ran out, so they rolled him up.”
“Rec’s almost over, I have to go now,” I said.
“Do you know how to keep your dog from humpin’ on your leg?”
“No.”
“You pick him up and suck his dick.”
“Gross! Do you have any final words of wisdom for COX members?”
“Yes. This: to open your mind you must stop thinkin’ like an American.”

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Unplugged Folias & Romanescas: Acoustics Très Tendrement, Finances Très Tendres

The viola da gamba is a chamber instrument with a soft, sweet tone, incapable of the dynamic extremes and brilliance of the violin. This helps to account for its decline.”

— Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition

CMT: During the interval I had a chance to glance at some of the music that Jordi had left on his music stand and on the floor. Beautiful hand-prepared manuscripts! Based on some idiosyncrasies in his scores, he seems to have intended to maximize exploiting the possibilities presented by the viola da gamba’s extended range. The gamba’s seven-string guitar-like tuning allows the performer a range of almost three octaves without shifting or changing positions (compared to two octaves plus a step on the cello). And its seven-string setup is conducive to virtuosic, arpeggiated passages. In one of the Marin Marais muzettes last night where a range of four octaves is spanned in only a few bars, Jordi demonstrated the flexibility the instrument allowed the composer. Phenomenal! The extended range of the viola da gamba is an “enabling technology” for a really dramatic melodic lyricism.

DSM: Together with Montserrat Figueras, Jordi Savall has founded three ensembles—Hespèrion XX, La Capella Reial and Le Concert des Nations. Each has in its own way charted new waters in terms of expressive beauty and lyricism. Savall’s performance in Alain Corneau’s film Tous les Matins du Monde (All the Mornings of the World), which won a César award for the best soundtrack, also charted new waters.

CMT: Sitting just 3 meters from Jordi at last night’s Friends of Chamber Music concert allowed me to observe his technique in detail. I was especially fascinated by his dramatic treatment of these pieces. According to Stowell’s Cambridge Companion to Cello, among the viola da gamba players of the 17th Century vibrato was associated with a tender, passionate or wailing quality. Jordi seems to favor a ‘flattement’ style of vibrato—one that’s extremely moving in tender pieces and on long notes. There is an intimate, introspective, confessional aspect to Jordi’s rendering of the Ortiz Folias—a storyteller’s sentimentality in his account of the Marais pieces. Almost autobiographical, when you are in the front row in a stone cathedral like this.

Diego Ortiz—Recercadas sobre tenores (Folias, Passa mezzo moderno, Romanesca)
Tobias Hume—Musickal Humors (Whope doe me no harme)
Gaspar Sanz—Piezas para la Guitarra (Jacaras-Canarios)
Marin Marais—La Viole de Louis XIV (Prelude-Le Labyrinthe)
Mr. De Sainte-Colombe de Fils—Fantasie en Rondeau
Mr. De Sainte-Colombe de Fils—Les pleurs
J.S. Bach—Bourrèe
J.S. Bach—English Suite in A minor
Antoine Forqueray—La Marella
Antonio Martin y Coll—Diferencias sobre las Folias
Jean-Baptiste Forqueray—La du Vaucel (Très Tendrement)

DSM: The movement of playing should serve to illustrate the music. Jordi does this superbly and consistently. These scores read as though they had a verbal text—well, in some cases they did have a verbal text, since much consort music was vocal in conception. But to see and hear Jordi Savall play is to believe that the entirety of the music is vocal in conception! The player must be ready to use a light, heavy or medium bow stroke according to the demands of the music. The melancholic music should be bowed lightly and evenly, while the left hand can use a tasteful amount of ‘tremolo’ to enhance the melancholy. Cheerful music requires the bow to animate the instrument and animate the music. You can only really see this adequately in live performance, close up! These pieces make you wonder for whom were the pieces written. Just who were the viola da gamba players and cellists capable of playing these pieces? Whoever the original dedicatees were, the performers must have been ones of great talent in order to do justice to this music.

CMT: You’re referring to the fact that every one of these pieces reveals big biomechanics issues, for the performer? These issues arise not only with the viola da gamba but basically with all other fretted stringed instruments that have more than four strings. Gambas and lutes and are tremendously delicate instruments. The bridge curvature on the gamba is pretty modest, and this makes it very difficult to apply bow pressure on a single string without touching off adjacent strings. Jordi is a phenomenal gymnast when it comes to expert bowmanship in the face of such risks. In the 16th Century, the necks of viols had very little backward tilt, making it necessary for the necks to be thick, to withstand the string tension. They were also narrow at the nut, bringing the strings very close together. There’s tremendous difficulty with chords and double-stops, especially for a player with a large hand or thick fingers, who would have difficulty in holding chords without overlapping other strings.

DSM: Compared to a modern cello, the absence of an endpin also makes the gamba awkward to play—hard to stabilize and hold between your gambas, I imagine. This physical precariousness of the gamba accentuates the delicacy of the sound, I think. For audience members who are in close proximity to the performer, the precariousness is visually captivating—somewhat in the way that we are captivated by watching a tight-rope walker—or a gymnast, as you put it. I was wondering in one of the Marais pieces whether Jordi had alternate-tuned one of the strings—scordatura? By the way, the fretted members of the string family, like the viola da gamba, came to be regarded as musical relics by the mid- to late-18th Century and were way out of fashion by the 19th Century, didn’t they?

CMT: Well, yes. The dark timbre and limited volume were the main reasons why, I suppose, given the acoustic demands of larger concert halls. Notably, the bright tone of gifted harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï achieved a volume perfect for balance between the instruments last night. Theorboist-guitarist Xavier Diaz delivered an exquisite offering as well. The full-to-capacity audience at Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral responded enthusiastically—an appreciative standing ovation for the deeply moving and technically superb performance.

DSM: But the acoustical properties of the viola da gamba and theorbo and harpsichord still have consequences in terms of the economics of live performance then, don’t they? It’s unreasonable to program this Trio into a venue with an audience of more than a few hundred—with an unamplified sound so delicate as this Trio has. And, after all, how much can you charge per seat? So it’s hard for the presenter to gross more than $20,000 for this kind of program. Therefore, for the artists the financial viability of this delicate music really depends upon CD sales and paid digital downloads—to augment the proceeds from performance fees. And for the presenters, the financial viability of this delicate music really depends upon interested donors/patrons and upon grants from public-sector agencies, foundations, and commercial benefactors—to augment the proceeds from ticket sales/subscriptions.

CMT: You were speaking of ‘physical precariousness’ of the instrument earlier. I suppose a correlate of that is the ‘financial precariousness’ of the artform itself. Just as there is an appreciation of beauty created against all odds by artists like Jordi and Pierre and Xavier—the adversity and risk that their chosen instruments present to them—there’s also an appreciation of beauty and rarity—conservation of endangered early music and chamber music species against all odds, by chamber music presenters and other organizations around the globe. Attending concerts or supporting organizations that nurture these species in the Arts, don’t we participate in a kind of beauty that’s somewhat like observing a rare orchid?—contributing to habitat preservation for the spotted owl? Aren’t the gesture and its internal rewards a little like supporting Nature Conservancy?

Friday, May 11, 2007

14 April 07

Visited by T-Bone

Sitting at my desk writing, I heard someone yell,"England, get your ass to the fence. Some big dude wants to speak to you."

“How big are your arms these days?” I asked T-Bone.
“Twenty-one-and-a-half inches.” T-Bone punched the wall he was sat on and said, “And they’re hard like this.”
Thank goodness, I thought, I’m out of reach of his punches.
“Are you working out as much as you used to?” I asked.
“Every day, practically. I’ve been doin’ little isometric exercises.”
“I hope you’re not using those muscles on anyone.”
“Someone disrespected me, so I had to give him a little short one. He was actin’ like he was a real badass.”
“Has he disrespected you since?”
“No. For the rest of his life he will never do that again.”
“What are you weighing?”
“I’m down to three-hundred-and-five pounds.”
“That’s skinny for you.”
T-Bone laughed and called a passer-by an, "ugly lizard-back joker."
“What are you eating?”
“Kosher food.”
“Where are you at spiritually?”
“I’m at where I was supposed to be. I was fluctuatin’ up and down. I’m gettin’ back on track.”
We were joined by Gambeezy, a Chicano who said to T-Bone, “Wassup, my neezy!”
“Wassup, Gambeezy!” T-Bone said.
“Is my homey aiiight?” Gambeezy said.
“Homey’s aiiight,” T-Bone said. “You must be real short?”
“Yeah,” Gambeezy said. “A few months to the gate. How short are you?”
“November 2009,” T-Bone said. “When I get out, I’m gonna show up in your hood, and steal your money.”
“That’s aiiight,” Gambeezy said. “I’ll throw you a bone and say, ‘God bless you, I’ll see you around.’ That’s the love I’m gonna show you. If I throw you in the car, you’re gonna be my downfall.”
“You’ll fall down yourself. You have a big belly, and a big 'ol head.”
“Like that, cabrone. Izzat right? I hope you didn’t bite your tongue on that one. Give Uncle Two Tonys my love down there,” Gambeezy said and left.
T-Bone stood up, and said, “L’n’ R, Jon.”
“L’n’ R, T-Bone. Give Two Tonys my love.”
“Aiiight,” T-Bone said and power-walked away.

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood